


you make me sick

by chewhy



Series: Soulmates [3]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-03-01 17:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13299846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewhy/pseuds/chewhy
Summary: another day and another soulmate au for yet another band lol





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this is a wip! idk what i'm doing! lol! get rekt!
> 
> also: i made up changbin's sister's name, only a little bit inspired by CL but also chaerin from almeng. take it as you wish

Changbin wakes up that morning in a blind rage, ready to smash anything and everything. He would have, too, if his pounding migraine hadn’t kept him locked into bed, unable to move unless it involved a pillow flopping back over his head to block out the sunlight. At one point, he thinks he gets up to vomit, although nothing comes out and ten minutes later his sister walks into the bathroom looking for her nail clippers and instead discovers Changbin, the baby of the house, curled over the toilet dry heaving. 

 

“Mom!” Chaerin calls out, and Changbin just wishes he had the energy left to shout at her to shut the fuck up, but all he can do is whimper and curl more tightly around the toilet bowl. “Changbinnie is dying!” Chaerin screams as she runs out of the room. 

 

Changbin gasps, half in relief as her footsteps fade away, half in anticipation of the oncoming storm of his mother’s worry, before returning his attention to the sickening lurch of his stomach. He manages to hear his mother’s worried call before the light begins to blur in sweeping motions around him, and the last thing he remembers is a cool hand resting on his burning forehead before he blacks out. 

 

—

 

Changbin wakes up to the soft hums and staccato beeps of machinery. He can hear shuffling and footsteps outside and he identifies the soft _woosh woosh_ as his sister’s classic mouth breathing. And then he realizes everything is pitch black. 

 

“Oh my god, oh my god,” Changbin begins chanting in an undertone to himself. “Oh my god, I can’t see anything, am I blind, am I dead, what is going on, oh my jesus fucking god,” his chants begin to increases in volume as the beeps simultaneous increase in tempo. 

 

Before Changbin notices that the woosh wooshes have stopped, he feels a hand smack him upside the head. “Shut up you big dummy, you’re closing your eyes.” 

 

_Oh._ He cracks them open one by one, blinking away the film of sleep before bringing his focus back to his dear sister Chaerin. Her eyes are puffy and he can’t tell if it’s from lack of sleep or from crying over her dear little brother (although guessing by the smack, it’s probably the former). “I’m not dead?”

 

“No,” his sister shrugs, picking at her nails. Chaerin always was the calm one in their family. “Mom told me to wait until the doctor got back to tell you but…”

 

“What is it?” Changbin breathes out, barely a whisper above the hums of the lights in the room. 

 

“Your soulmate bond has awakened.”

 

—

 

If this were a screenplay, Changbin imagines that moment would have called for an intense zoom in into his face before falling out into some random exposition about the history of soulmates. Instead he gets his family bustling into the room with a bundle of flowers (are they for sympathy on being sick or congratulating him for finding his soulmate?) and a packet of homework from his doctor. Looking back in hindsight, Changbin really should have listened to all the technicalities that the doctor was spewing out, but with the hustle and bustle of his mother waving around tissues, his dad typing away on his iPad, and his sister still on with her cuticle care, he couldn’t help but be distracted. 

 

Those regretful choices now leaves him sitting on his bed with flyers — unread, of course — scattered on his floor and his computer open to the Wikipedia page on physically manifesting soulmates. 

 

Changbin grumbles to himself, wondering, “Why the hell did I have to get the most painful one. Isn’t the running family matchmaker usually a red string of fate or something?”

 

He flicks through a few more tabs, laughing at the WikiHow article that tells him to “reach deep inside and truly try to find yourself before you go about looking for your soulmate” followed by a picture of a poorly drawn woman touching her reflection in the mirror. “Well, whoever my soulmate is better not get this sick, ever again. 'Significant changes to the body, both mental and physical, will be felt by the other soulmate at random intervals until the partners interact physically and are able to better control the bond.’ Who the fuck came up with this bullshit!” Changbin shouts, snapping closed his laptop. 

 

There’s a sharp bang on the wall next to him followed by Chaerin’s voice, “You’re talking to yourself again! And you better watch your language or I’m telling Mom!”

 

Changbin shrugs and turns for his notebook on the side of his bed, muttering to himself, “I’m the one that has to deal with listening to you make out with Woojin hyung.”

 

There’s another bang and a shout of, “I heard that!” before Changbin can finally relax into the silence of another night, accompanied only by the sound of his own pencil scratching across paper. 

 

—

 

On the other side of the ocean, a young boy wakes up on his sixteenth birthday, excited to run out and show the world his grown up, manly self, only to trip on a sock on his way out of his room, and then sneeze snot all over his upper collar. 

 

He finds himself downstairs an hour later, swaddled in a mountain of blankets, an unfathomable amounts of pills shoved down his throat as his mother runs around the house trying to find their great-grandmother’s secret recipe for chicken noodle soup. He’s whining around the thermometer sticking out of his mouth, begging, “Mom, please! It’s supposed to be my big sweet sixteen! I’ve been planning this for ages!”

 

“Felix, I said no!” she shouts back from the kitchen, accompanied by the crash and clang of pots and pans. 

 

“But—“ Felix doesn’t get to finish his sentence as he runs out of the room and heads to the toilet to puke up what is left of last night’s dinner.


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if they seem a little ooc its bc of the soulmate thing !! updates will be short and sporadic rip college is hard, yall

Time passes as it usually does for Changbin, with him giving very minimal thought to his supposed soulmate bond. Nothing much has been acting up, and when he does remember that it exists, his only thought is, _I’m glad that whoever the punk is, they’re taking care of their body_. 

 

And then, because karma’s got its kiss coming for him, Changbin wakes up on day with a broken arm. A broken-fucking-arm. Changbin can’t help but lament, “Why is it always when I wake up, refreshed from a nice and wonderful nap, that this always happens to me?” as he waits in the ER with his sister acting as a chaperone. 

 

“It’s because all you do is sleep all day long, Changbin,” she replies, chewing her gum loudly as she sits under the _NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED_ sign. 

 

“Legal adult my ass,” Changbin mutters to himself. 

 

“I heard that,” Chaerin hums. 

 

_God, what is she, a bat?_ he thinks glumly to himself. 

 

“I hear that, too.”

 

Changbin can only splutter before the nurse is entering the room to call his name. 

 

— 

 

He comes home that afternoon with a cast on his wrist and a frown on his face. He’s thinking of how he’s going to be able to write down his lyrics with this mess in the way, although that thought immediately changes to, _What the fuck_ , when he opens the door. “What the fuck?”

 

“Language,” his sister calls, eyes glued to her phone as she swerves around the mound of balloons and confetti littering the living room and heads upstairs. 

 

“Welcome home and get better soon, Binnie!” Jisung shouts, and then the rest of his friends follow suit with varying levels of enthusiasm. 

 

“I was literally only at the hospital for a couple of hours. You lot are acting like I was in rehab or something,” Changbin mutters distastefully as he looks around the room. 

 

“We just wanted to do something to make our friend feel better, is that such a crime?” Jisung wails in overdramatic despair, falling to the ground and clutching as his chest. “I give up! Is this all this friendship has to offer?” Minho looks up from the corner he’s sitting in to quiver his head. Changbin can’t be entirely sure whether he’s laughing at Jisung or nodding along with him. 

 

Changbin just sighs and heads to the kitchen to grab a marker. “Fine. You can sign my cast if you stop crying and help me clean this up.” 

 

What follows is a mad dash in which everybody is tugging at Changbin’s arm and he can’t help but regret his statement just the slightest bit. 

 

—

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, a boy is pacing the room, one hand clutching at his hair in distress.

 

“What?! You’re taking away my skateboard?” Felix cries out.

 

“Felix, please. You just broke you wrist riding that thing! And I told you so many times to wear wristguards and a helmet. It’s your own fault that you didn’t listen.”

 

“This is bullshit! It’s just a scratch, what the fuck are my friends going to say?” he rants.

 

“Felix! Watch your language, I will not tolerate this kind of attitude,” Felix’s mother warns. 

 

“Whatever. Fuck. You can’t tell me what to do,” he grumbles as he stomps up the stairs. 

 

Felix’s mother sighs, shaking her head. “Go to your room and stay there until you’ve recalled your manners. You are grounded, young man.” She gets no response except the resounding thud of a door shutting followed by a lightly muffled scream. She can only sigh again, wondering, “What has gotten into him these days?”


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bong chan is oblivious and awkward and felix has struggles
> 
> i think chaerin is my favorite character

Felix isn’t entirely sure what he’s doing here. He stands there in a daze as the crowd pushes past him, blinking up at the harsh lights as a yawn fights its way onto his face. He winces as it stretches out his right cheek where a row of seven neat little stitches rest right under his awful black eye. If anybody around him cared to look for longer than a second, they might have thought he was some sort of thug, sporting ripped jeans and a black hood, carrying an oversized, worn duffel bag slung over his shoulder. 

 

“This is bullshit,” he mutters under his breath, although it is apparently not quiet enough as a lady passing by with a small toddler tucked into her arms turns and gasps, sending a glare his way. Felix doesn’t mean to, but his mouth curls down and a growl escapes his mouth of its own will, sending the woman scurrying away. 

 

Felix shrugs the bag back up his shoulder as it begins to slip and eyes the signs on the walls. He tries to decipher the Korean writing for a moment before giving up and tracing the English letters. _Bus Terminal - Right_. Maybe that was where he was supposed to meet his guide? Felix is honestly not sure why his mother thought it would be a good idea to send him to Korea of all places, especially considering he doesn’t actually even know a spec of the language other than the first four letters of the alphabet and, “Hi, my name is Felix. Bathroom?”

 

The bus terminal itself is moderately crowded, and Felix scans the room until his eyes spot the only unoccupied row of benches at the very back of the room. “Excuse me, excuse me,” he mutters as he jostles through groups of talking people, regardless of whether or not they will understand him. He keeps his eyes glued to the ground, only looking up to swerve around people, like the guy holding a sign saying, “Welcome, FELIX!” He snorts at the hearts adorning the sign as he continues to shuffle past, eyes on his goal of the empty strip of bench before he stops, turns, and looks back. 

 

Felix wonders, _what kind of grandpa wears skinny jeans?_ as he takes in the gray hair and skinny jeans before mustering up the courage to walk up and tap the man’s shoulder. “Hello? You are Byung Chan?”

 

The grandpa turns around and whoa. That is not a grandpa. The guy seems to be Felix’s age, maybe a couple of years older. “Hey! You must be Felix. It’s actually Bang Chan, nice to meet you,” _Bang_ Chan says as he sticks out his hand. 

 

Felix feels a little comfort hearing the guy speak English and nods, shaking his hand. “Bung Chan?”

 

“Bang Chan.”

 

“Bong Chan?”

 

“Bang Chan.”

 

“Bing—“

 

“You know what?” Bang Chan pulls back his hand from the handshake that is getting a little awkwardly long. “Just call me Chris.”

 

“Okay,” Felix nods, not sure how much longer that awful exchange could have gone. 

 

“Okay!” Chris agrees. He gestures to Felix’s bag, asking, “Need help?”

 

Felix looks down and grunts, “It’s fine,” but is relieved when Chris takes the bag anyway. 

 

“Just let me take it, I’m supposed to be helping you! Nasty cut, by the way, what happened?” Chris asks as he leads the way out.

 

“Fight,” Felix mumbles, trailing awkwardly behind.

 

“Oh. I see. So, why’d you come to Korea?” Chris tries to steer the conversation to a hopefully better topic as they wait for the bus. 

 

“Mom. Fight.” Felix doesn’t have it in him to explain that his mother thought his attitude was a result of hanging out with bad friends, and that a summer away would help, as if this was some Fresh Prince of Bel Air shit. Honestly, his friends aren’t even the problem, because Felix doesn’t know what’s been pushing him into all these bad decisions recently. His mind wants one thing but then his body will act of his own accord. His feet scuff at the curb and he wills himself not to run away and hide. 

 

“Oh. Okay.” Felix can see little beads of sweat starting to form on Chris’s forehead as the awkward silence stretches out longer. 

 

The bus finally pulls up and they file on, Chris paying for Felix’s tokens. As they move to their seats, Chris attempts at one more bit of small talk, asking, “So, the weather’s a bit cooler than Australia, yeah?”

 

But that’s when Felix trips and falls as the bus jolts forward, smacking his head onto a pole.

 

—

 

“Ow,” Changbin groans, as a sharp pain suddenly permeates through his skull. “As if the bruising and cut weren’t enough, now what’s happened?” he wonders.

 

His sister snickers on the other side of the room, “I bet your soulmate is a gangster, that’s why you get injured so much.”

 

“Shut up. It’s not like I enjoy getting beat up by invisible beings.”

 

“Nobody asked,” Chaerin shrugs. “Also, Woojin told me to tell you to pick up your phone because Chan told him that they’re having a welcoming party for some kid that is Chan’s mom’s high school friend’s son.”

 

“What?” When Changbin only gets a shrug and an eye roll from his dear, darling sister, he sighs, “Tell them I’ll pass. I’m not going out until my face looks beautiful again.”

 

“Okay, I’ll tell him you’re never leaving the house for your whole life then!” Chaerin cheerfully chirps as she fishes a bag of peas out of the freezer and tosses them at him. Changbin can’t be sure whether Chaerin makes the headache better or worse, but he heads upstairs with the bag balanced on his head anyway. 


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hah felix is WEAK

“Bam ba bam! Bam bam bam bammmm ba bammm!”

 

Felix isn’t sure how to react to opening the door to Chris’s house only to be greeted by… Some kid that is making trumpet noises with his mouth. “Um. What?”

 

“Welcome!” another one of the boys milling about chirps up. 

 

_Why are there so many?_ Felix wonders, trying to count them all. He thinks there might be five? It seems manageable until he turns around and sees another kid crawling out of a closet. “Um, hi?”

 

“Hi, Felix hyung! I’m Jeongin, Chan hyung was just telling us about you! This is so exciting, can you please teach me some English? I’ve always wanted to learn!” the closet kid says. 

 

“Oh, uh, sure,” Felix answers, bewildered as he turns to look at Chan for help only to see that… He is no longer there. _Okay,_ Felix thinks _, That’s fine, too, just leave me here to rot, I guess._

 

“What?!!” the kid that was trumpeting earlier screeches. “You could just ask _me_ to teach you English! I lived in Malaysia for eighty bajillion years! Why don’t you love me, Jeongin-ah!” 

 

Jeongin sighs and attempts to shake off the trumpet kid who is clinging to poor Jeongin’s arm like a koala. “Sorry about that. This is Jisung hyung, and I would never ask him to teach me English because he is too much of a mess to actually get his head together for long enough to plan out a lesson.”

 

“Oh, right, hi,” Jisung says, suddenly peeling himself off of Jeongin just so he can latch onto Felix instead. “Let me introduce you!” he excitedly says, dragging Felix into the next room over. He points in all directions as he says, “The moody one over in the corner is Minho, the two whispering and cuddling in that corner are Hyunjin and Seungmin, Woojin is in the kitchen with Chan prepping your surprise and Changbin you have yet to meet.” Felix nods, pretending to understand. 

 

He figures he might as well go greet them, and as it seems like most everyone else is otherwise occupied, he decides to go visit the gloomy kid in the corner. “Oh, hi,” Felix says. “You’re… Minnow?” he’s not sure if he got the accent quite right.

 

Back in the kitchen, Chan is completely losing it. “MINNOW!”

 

“Yeah, that’s me,” Minho replies, smiling. Felix decides he seems rather nice and normal compared to the other kids. It’s just an added plus that he doesn’t make fun of Felix for his accent. 

 

But as they stand there in a few awkward minutes, Felix considers changing his mind. “So… I think I’m going to go find Chan. I’ll see you around?” he says, inching towards the kitchen where some questionable banging of pots and pans can be heard. When Minho gives no response, Felix takes that as a yes and exits right.

 

“Oh, Felix! You shouldn’t be in here, you’ll ruin the surprise,” Chan exclaims, ushering him back into the living room even though he’s already seen the huge wreck of a cake that sits on the table top. A blonde kid that Felix concludes to be Woojin is waving his hands around it as if that will help make it stand up any straighter. 

 

Back in the living room, Chan asks, “Would you like my help peeling Jisung off of your side?”

 

Looking down, Felix realizes that Jisung has been following him with his arms hung around Felix’s abdomen the entire time. “Oh. I didn’t notice.”

 

At that, Jisung takes immediate offense and jumps back. “How dare you,” he reprimands, turning to go run towards Jeongin or the next person to give him some attention. 

 

“Wow,” comments Chan. “Impressive work. It would have taken anybody but Changbin hours to pry Jisung off on a good day. Speaking of, you should really meet—“

 

At that moment, Woojin comes through the door, carrying a cake that has the layers piled precariously high up. “Dinner is served, everybody!” he calls, and everyone promptly rushes over, even Jisung who seems to have forgotten about his grudge against Felix already as he latches himself onto Felix once more. 

 

As they sit around the table, Felix feels for his life as the cake slightly wobbles into his direction.

 

“This cake is bent like my great-grandfather’s back,” Minho comments, looking upon the monstrosity. “Oh, and by great-grandfather, I meant you, Chan.” He shares a quick high five with Jisung before Chan attempts to tackle him across the table, only stopped by the cake obstructing his view in the middle. 

 

“Ha, well it’s straighter than me, am I right, boys?” Hyunjin crows, thrusting his hand into Seungmin’s face for a high five. Seungmin just shakes his head in disapproval, so Hyunjin turns his palm around to face Felix, who is sitting on his other side.

 

Felix decides that he might as well indulge in the kid and says, “Mood,” smacking Hyunjin’s palm in mid-air. As he grabs himself a slice of cake, he leans over and whispers into Chan’s ear, “So, what was it that you were saying before about meeting somebody?”

 

“Oh,” Chan speaks around a mouthful of cake. “Another friend of ours, Changbin, couldn’t make it but I think you guys would get along great! Your personalities seem really complementary.”

 

“Ah, I see,” Felix says, nodding sagely as if he knows what “complementary” translates to in English. He really should have paid more attention when his mom insisted that he work on his Korean, but… It’s too late to regret now. Felix figures if he stuffs his mouth with cake, he won’t have to participate in conversation any longer and plops a large slice onto his plate. The middle of the cake seems to be slightly… runny? He sniffs at it and smells vanilla so he decides that it shouldn’t hurt and takes a big bite. 

 

And immediately regrets it. A moment later, Chan is pointing to the bathroom and yelling while dear, sweet Seungmin grabs his hand and drags him to the sink as he heaves up what’s left of the airplane food and cake in his stomach. 

 

Later, when Woojin looks like a kicked dog as Minho shakes his head, scolding, “You really didn’t have to try to poison our guest on his first day here.” Felix insists that it was really just that his immune system got fucked up from the plane ride over. Right on cue, Felix sneezes nine times in a row and Jisung takes a cautious step backwards. 

 

When Woojin gives him a dirty look, Jisung throws up his hands and says, “Look, nobody wants to be sick during summer break, okay?”

 

“Well,” Hyunjin shouts, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, am I right boys?” as he leans over to smack at Felix’s hand. 

 

Jisung hisses, “I hope you get sick.” While everyone is scolding Jisung, Felix smothers a smile behind his sleeve and decides that it really isn’t so bad being here in Korea if everybody is like Chan’s friends. 

 

—

 

A few neighborhoods away, Changbin is Hunched Over A Toilet Season 2 as Chaerin pats him on the back.

 

“Why,” he gets out between bouts of heaving, “Do the gods hate me.”

 

“Nah, it’s not the gods,” Chaerin butts in. “Your soulmate just has a shit immune system. This is why kids should eat dirt when they’re young. Really boosts your physicals.”

 

“Well it clearly didn’t help you mentally,” Changbin grumbles, reaching a hand out for the glass of water that Chaerin brings for him. “Wait, I’m sorry! I take it back please, you’re smart and beautiful!” he amends as she takes back the glass and turns to walk out of the room. 

 

As he crawls along the hallway, weakly chasing his sister, Changbin decides that he needs to meet his soulmate ASAP, just so that he can strangle the kid for all the suffering he’s endured. 


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> is there more puking? yeah the title of this fic is "you make me sick" idk what yall expected  
> but no worries, this is the last of the sickyness for a while

“Binnie binnie Changbinnie!”

 

Changbin groans and hits the _End Call_ button because it is far too early for this shit to be disturbing what little sleep he finally managed after being up all night with a god awful headache. 

 

When the loud chirp of his ringtone pierces the air for the second time that morning, he debates chucking it across the room, but decides he doesn’t have enough money in his bank account to buy a new phone _and_ a pair of Yeezys, so he compromises by answering and leaving it far enough away from his head that Chan’s voice isn’t so loud. 

 

“What do you want, monster.”

 

“Binnie! So glad you’re awake this morning!” Chan chirps into the phone. Changbin decides that it’s far too loud even from where it sits a foot away, and nudges it until it is precariously hanging off the edge of the bed.

 

“I’m not.”

 

“That’s great to hear, Binnie, so I was thinking, Felix and Hyunjin are both sick with a cold or flu or cake or something, and I thought we could all cook them some soup to get better! What do you think?” Chan asks. From the sound of it, Changbin can tell he’s already started making a mess of his kitchen. 

 

“No.”

 

“Aw, come on! Jisung’s not even going to be there because he’s a wimp and doesn’t want to get sick. Won’t you come?” Chan asks, followed by a loud, “Oof” as he maybe-drops something on himself. 

 

“No.”

 

“Why not?” Chan is sure to be making those god awful puppy dog eyes at him through the phone. 

 

“I’m sick, too, so go away. I’m in quarantine for a week, so leave me alone,” Changbin explains, too tired to keep up a banter.

 

“Oh, I see. Then we can bring you some soup, too!” There’s another clatter as Chan probably tries to pull a third thermos off the top shelf while tupperware falls all around him. 

 

“Yeah, whatever, thanks.” Changbin hangs up the phone and goes back to bed, not even bothering to ask who the fuck “Felix” is supposed to be. 

 

—

 

Some time later, Changbin is jerked out of sweet, peaceful sleep by the sound of their ridiculously loud doorbell shattering his brain into a million pieces. Or at least, that’s what he imagines.

 

When the ringing continues and nobody responds to his calls of “Mom! Dad! Chaerin! Anyone!” Changbin forces himself out of bed as he crawls towards the entrance. These are the days that he regrets how big their house is. 

 

As he draws closer to the front entrance, he feels his headache get worse as the clamoring of too many voices grows louder and louder. Finally, he opens the door and the ringing stops, only to be replaced by the shouts of, “Changbin hyung!” or “Ey, Changbin! You’re not dead!” and Chan’s, “You alright, mate?”

 

Changbin just glares, even though it strains his eyes and makes his brain feel like it’s exploding because he needs to keep up his _dark_ image. However, when Chan holds up a thermos of soup, Changbin caves and opens the door to user them in. 

 

“Come in but don’t touch me, I’m sick,” he says as he leads them to the kitchen. “Also don’t touch anything, you lot are going to break it,” he adds as an afterthought as he sees Jisung reach his grimy fingers towards an elephant figurine on the side of the room. Changbin imagines Jisung as Abu from _Aladdin_ , reaching for the forbidden ruby with gold reflected in his eyes, and makes a mental note to laugh about it later when it everything hurts a little less.

 

“I wasn’t gonna touch it! I was just looking,” Jisung whines as he snatches his hand back out of the way. 

 

Changbin shrugs, turning to Chan, “And I thought you said Jisung wasn’t coming?” 

 

At that, Jisung beams and whips out a face mask and hand sanitizer. “No worries, hyung! I came prepared, just for you!” 

 

Changbin fakes gagging and takes a seat at the kitchen table. “You may present your gifts,” he says with a grand gesture. He nods in approval as Chan fakes a deep bow, pouring the chicken noodle soup into a bowl in front of him. “Somebody has to check if it’s poisoned,” Changbin declares. “Who will do it?”

 

“I volunteer as tribute!” Jisung declares, jumping forwards. 

 

Changbin pushes away Jisung’s approaching hand, muttering, “I thought you didn’t want to get sick?”

 

Chan sighs, “Alright, enough games, just eat the soup already before it gets cold. I don’t want to leave the others alone for too long.”

 

“Okay, dad,” Changbin says, cautiously taking a sip of the soup. It tastes surprisingly good, and before he knows it, he’s finished the whole thing. “Wow. That was actually really good? Who made it?” he asks Chan, who is the only one remaining in the kitchen. There’s a bump and then a thud somewhere from the living room as Jisung a Minho fuss around, making Changbin wince internally.

 

“Woojin and I made it together!” Chan says, puffing his chest out proudly.

 

“Oh really?” Changbin is genuinely surprised.

 

“Well,” Chan amends, “I turned on the stove and Woojin poured it out of the can into the pot. Then I stirred it! And Woojin poured it into the thermos.”

 

“Aha. I see.” Changbin is no longer surprised.

 

“Oh, also,” Chan recalls suddenly, “Jisung made you a special dessert!”

 

At the sound of his own name, Jisung comes bounding into the room. “Heck yeah, I did! Minho?” he turns his hand out to reach for the bottle that Minho has been holding in his hand this whole time. “I made this smoothie for you! It’s all superfoods, really healthy! Think of it as a dessert that’s good for your body!” Jisung hands the “smoothie” over to Changbin.

 

“I’m not really sure about this…” Changbin looks to Chan for support, but he just shrugs. When Jisung starts to get that crying look on his face, Changbin surrenders, “Okay, fine, fine. I’ll drink it!”

 

As Jisung whoops in glee, Changbin cautiously takes a sip, before spewing it right back out in Jisung’s face. Before Jisung even has time to complain, Changbin is running for the sink, gagging. _Jesus Christ, not this again_ , he thinks as he holds his stomach in pain. 

 

Chaos ensues as Jisung runs for the bathroom screaming, and Minho follows along. Chan goes to help Changbin at the sink but is stopped as his phone lights up with a text. 

 

**from: precious jeongin~**

 

_hyung help felix hyung is vomiting idk what to do please come quikly_

 

_This has not been a great week_ , Chan decides.


	6. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hi sorry i am a trash human being and keep neglecting this fic
> 
> somebody never let me write a chaptered fic again riperooni

“I literally can _not_ believe I spent a whole year living off of Woojin hyung’s shitty chicken noodle soup when I could have been eating this gloriousness _every single fucking day_ ,” Felix moans between inhales as he chows down on all of the meat he can get his hands on. 

 

“You do realize you weren’t even sick for a full week?” Chan asks as he continues grilling at the speed of light so that he can try to keep up with Felix’s vacuum cleaner innards. At this rate, he’s pretty sure his wallet’s going to be absolutely depleted within the next hour or so. Luckily, Felix’s mom included a… shall we say “nice little allowance, just as a little thank you for watching out for our darling Felix” along with his arrival. Chan realizes now the reason for the thick envelope Felix shoved in his face on his first day in Korea. 

 

“Ok, but I was still missing out? And you don’t get to talk until you’ve had to sit through a full week of Woojin hyung’s so-called ‘soup’!” Felix exclaims. Or at least, Chan thinks that’s what he says, although it is rather difficult to decipher through the rice stuffed in Felix’s cheeks. 

 

Chan just huffs, grilling the meat faster. (It somehow acts as a decent source of stress relief, and Chan mentally plans a group camping trip for him and the kids.) “I’ll have you know that I helped Woojin make his ‘shitty chicken noodle soup’ and that Changbin enjoyed it very much.”

 

“That was before Woojin ran out of the pre-made Campbell’s soup cans, Chris,” Felix rebutts. “Anyway, when am I meeting this Changbin person? Is he even real? Like, who actually gets sick in the summer time?”

 

“You got sick in the summer time…” 

 

Felix waves it off with a shake of his head. “I was on the plane! My immune system was completely out of wack. And Hyunjin got sick from me. So we don’t count,” he explains. 

 

Chan just gives him a look over the grill. “Sure. Changbin is still sick, apparently,” he says in response to Felix’s original question. 

 

“Still sick? It’s been like, a whole week, how weak is this kid.”

 

“To be quite honest, I’m pretty sure we could visit him right now, but I’m just… shielding you from his emo mood swings. Changbin is on a downward swing right now so we’d have to sit through an hour of Epik High on repeat while he mutters unfinished lyrics to himself,” Chan explains. At Felix’s look of horror, he assures, “I promise it’s a pretty fun experience, but it can be a little bit traumatic the first time. Want to go to the skate park instead?” 

 

Felix nods hastily, still a little bit terrified at the thought of this mysterious Changbin figure as they quickly pay and head out.

 

—

 

Two hours later, Felix and Chan find themselves in the waiting room of the emergency room at the hospital. 

 

“You know,” Chan begins, and Felix can already feel the Disappointed Dad(™) vibes rolling off of him in waves. “I really don’t understand why you thought it was so critical to impersonate the no head vine.”

 

“Chris,” Felix sighs. “Not now. My leg is broken.”

 

“You broke my skateboard dude,” Chan bites back. Before their argument can escalate any further, a nurse comes to their side and ushers Felix into a side room.

 

The next few hours pass in a daze of Felix screaming and panicking while he grips Chan’s arm so hard it almost breaks. There are x-rays and check ups and tests, all while Felix moans and groans at every little movement, now that it’s been confirmed that his ankle is genuinely injured and Felix has moved on from the state of shock he was in earlier. 

 

It takes three doctors (the first two were too scary looking but the third one brought candy and let him listen to music), twelve nurses (Felix likes being babied, and also all the nurses think he’s adorable when he’s whining), a lot of bribery, and a very stressed out Chan before Felix is finally settled down in a little room in the East Wing of the hospital. 

 

“By the way,” Felix asks as he munches on the snacks that he wheedled various nurses into bringing him, “Why can’t I leave? My leg’s been set right?” He pokes at his cast before turning to Chan and asking him if he has a marker and would like to sign it. 

 

As Chan doodles his signature and some weird sort of snail-y dinosaur thing, he speaks around the marker cap between his teeth, “Apparently you had some irregular heart rhythms, so they want to keep you overnight to observe if there’s any chance of like, hyper-something. I told them that you’re pretty hyper on the regular, but it’s an actual disease of some sort.” Chan looks up and holds out a placating hand before Felix can jump out of bed to start another dramatic monologue, “And no, you are not going to die. It’s highly unlikely, but the doctors just want to double check.”

 

“Sure, sure. But if I do die, it’s your job to put the fun in my funeral, okay?” Felix requests. Chan is slightly uncomfortable with how serious Felix sounds. 

 

“Uh. Okay. I’m going to get some coffee, I’ll be back in a moment,” Chan says, slipping out of the room without even a glance back. 

 

Felix is left to his own devices and now that there’s nobody to bug and whine to he resorts to reaching over to grab the remote and begins flipping through the channels on the tv. One of them is playing music bank, which he stops on, and when Twice come on stage his internal and external fanboy explode.

 

“Holy shit, yasssss Jihyo! Slay! Hit those high notes, girl!” he shouts at the camera, shimmying where he sits as much as the hospital bed and the cast strapped around his leg will allow. He begins to sing along, not noticing the swoosh of the curtain next to him until a voice speaks up, stopping him in his tracks. 

 

“Could you please keep it down a bit? I’m trying to get some rest here.”

 

Felix slowly turns his head and is graced by the sight of another kid about his own age who is glaring at him with squinty eyes from under a dark black fringe. 

 

“Oh shit,” is all Felix has to say before he’s scrambling to turn down the volume on the remote. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think there was anybody else in here. I’ll keep it down,” Felix apologizes. 

 

The boy grunts and lays back down on his bed with a thud. Felix keeps his eyes glued to the screen straight ahead, but he’s now hyperconscious of every slight rustling coming from the bed one over from him. 

 

After a few moments of awkward silence punctuated only by the steading beeping of his monitor and Twice on screen singing “You’re my heart shaker shaker” Felix can’t stand the itchy feeling that’s come over his whole body and blurts out, “What are you here for?”

 

When the boy sighs, Felix looks over at him imploringly. “Are you very sick?” Felix asks.

 

“No,” the boy says, and merely lifts up his right leg in response. There’s a cast around the ankle and Felix gasps in surprise. 

 

“Oh hey, no way, me too!” he says, pulling up his leg to show it off. “And look, I got the doctors to wrap it in green. Pretty sick, huh?”

 

“No,” the boy says again. “It just hurts.”

 

“Oh. Yeah, same. Do you want me to sign it for you? I can draw a cool picture on it or something,” Felix says. (Internally, he’s desperately tempted to draw a dick on the other kid’s cast but he’s not sure how well that would go over, considering the most spoken word of the other boy so far has been “no”.)

 

“No.” 

 

_There it is again_ , Felix thinks with a pout.

 

“I’m just going to sleep. Please be quiet,” the kid says, rolling over in bed so he’s facing the door and not Felix. 

 

“Well, that was rude,” Felix mutters to himself in English and pretends to be enraptured by the television when the boy turns back to give him a glare. A few more minutes of silence passes like this, Felix pretending that he’s genuinely interested in the debut stage for some group called Stray Kids that he could care less about and the other kid pretending to sleep. Felix can tell by the constant rustling and movement that he’s actually wide awake, though. Unless he’s sleep walking. Felix is about to jump out of bed so he can check if the guy’s eyes are really closed when Chan finally returns from wherever the hell he was with two cups in his hands. 

 

“Chris!” Felix shouts, sitting up straight in bed and pretending he hadn’t just been about to clamber out to bug a stranger. “You’re back!”

 

“Damn right I am, now stop trying to run away,” Chan says, giving him a stern look. “I brought hot choc— Holy shit. Changbin?”

 

“What? Chan hyung?” the boy says, sitting up straight in bed. 

 

“Ha! So you weren’t asleep!” Felix chooses that moment to shout as he half stands in his bed, pointing his finger. 

 

“What the hell?” the boy, Changbin, says, turning to face Felix defensively. 

 

“Hey! Oh, fuck!” Chan says, going to grab at Felix to pull him down, only to drop the cup in his hands. 

 

“No!” Felix gasps, “My hot chocolate!”

 

“Jesus Christ, you are so loud,” Changbin growls.

 

“Literally this is chaos, can everybody be quiet for one second?” Chan finally shouts, and everybody stops their shouting and rustling. 

 

The air is filled with silence, even the television taking the opportunity to quiet down as it plays light background music for an advertisement for a soulmates’ beach resort trip to the tropics. The only sound now is Felix’s bed squeaking as he gets back down to a slightly more proper sitting position and the beeping of their monitors. 

 

“Thank you,” Chan says, looking over at Changbin before doing a quick double take. “Woah, you broke your leg, too? Damn, you guys are so in sync. Wait, holy shit,” he says, taking in their heart monitors on either side of them. “Your heartbeats are literally synced up.”

 

“What?” Changbin asks, confused as he looks over to Felix’s monitor. “Wait, how do you know him?”

 

“Oh,” Chan says, shaking his head as he tries to reorient all of the new information around himself. “Wait. Yeah. Felix, this is Changbin. Changbin, this is Felix.”


	7. chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reader commented: “ah they finally met!”
> 
> author replied: “hah bitch u thought”
> 
> lmao sike im not that awful i just am horrible at updating which i am VERY sorry for, i just kind of derailed into writing other fics, and then i struggled to find the style that i wrote this in originally too, and im so sorry for just killing it but i promise i have it all planned out so it actually isnt dead dont worry i will finish it!

“This is so stupid.”

 

“I know, Felix, I’m sorry.” 

 

“I won’t even get to properly experience emo-phase-Changbin ever.”

 

“It’s really not that great, I promise.”

 

“Will you text me? And please don’t kill our streak, man. I know you’re bad at this kind of stuff,” Felix says, sniffling back his tears as he clings onto Chan the same way the starfish clung to the glass wall of the aquarium in Finding Nemo. 

 

“Yes, yes. I’m not  _ actually _ a grandpa, you know?” Chan replies, patting Felix’s back. “Now stop acting like it’s the end of the world! I’m sure if you ask nicely you can come visit again soon, okay?”

 

“This is so stupid,” Felix mumbles into Chan’s shoulder.

 

“You already said that, kid,” Chan answers. 

 

“I know. But it’s true so I’m saying it again. My mom is so annoying,” Felix groans, peeling himself off of Chan finally. He thinks back to the phone call that ruined the good fun he was finally having for once this year after all of the ups and downs he had been through. Of course he couldn’t leave it past his own mother to let him live a little. So what if he broke a leg, it was a simple accident that could have happened whether he was in Australia or Korea, and yet now he was stuck going back home so soon. Looking at Chan’s face, Felix recalls all of the fun they had had the past few weeks they spent together. 

 

Even as he sits on the plane, even as he comes back to the place that’s supposed to be his home, he can’t help but feel like he maybe had the best time of his life in the past few weeks that went by. He knows that, logically, it’s unrealistic. A few weeks to compare to the 80 years he’ll live? But still, back home he spends every day moping and whining to his mom. 

 

And so the rest of his summer passes insignificantly, filled with fights with his mom and holing up in his room only to sneak out at night and get sentimental as he traces stars in the skies and sticks in the sand. 

 

He still texts Chan every day, and has video calls with the rest of the crew, and even though he only really knew them for a short time, they made such a connection that he thinks they really might be lifelong friends. They regularly talk about the next time they plan to meet up, even across five thousand miles, and he thinks his mom might be softening as she watches her son’s heart break over friendships that could never be completed. 

 

And then they get a small, nondescript envelope in the mail that turns everything to shit. 

  
  


—

 

“ _ What do you  _ mean _ that you’re coming back to Korea? _ ” Chan asks as Felix excitedly blabbers away on the phone. 

 

“I mean exactly what you just said,” Felix says, snarky even as he can’t hold back his smile. “We’re actually going to move there temporarily, at least for my treatments. Or well, my mom is coming with, but my dad is staying so that he can keep working because his business will still be in Sydney, but he’ll probably be flying back and forth, and I’ll be registering in school soon so you’re going to have to really help me with my Korean—“

 

“Wait, wait, wait, Felix, you’re rambling,” Chan interrupts him in the middle of his spiel. 

 

“Oh, yes, I know, sorry!” Felix apologizes. He’s just far too excited and he has to pack and get ready and there’s so much to do.

 

“Treatment. What was it that you said about treatment?” Chan asks, cutting off whatever trains of thought Felix was going through at the moment. 

 

“Oh, about that…”

 

—

 

It’s a little bit strange coming back the second time. Because this time, he’s moving in with his mother to his aunt’s house for the time being, and his dad is still back at home in Sydney, and sure Felix will miss his friends but there’s a piece of him that just knows that  _ here _ , in Seoul, South Korea, is where he really belongs. And it’s not just something to do with heritage or ancestry or whatever. It’s a certain part of his heart and his chest that breathes easy, like a magnet finally giving into the pull of its long lost other half.

 

And maybe it’s the fact that the doctors here can help him figure out whatever is going on with his heart rhythms. It hadn’t been very clear what they were saying, just that he wasn’t sick  _ yet _ , but that he should return so they could properly diagnose him, so his heart can  _ literally _ breathe easier, but who knows.

 

Felix doesn’t really care about that, more concerned with crashing the pre-party to his own surprise welcome back party. He might  _ act _ stupid sometimes (see: the skateboarding incident… among others) but he really isn’t completely a fool. 

 

So here he is, hopping around outside Chan’s house, looking like a fool, although he’d much rather that people understand him to be “investigating”, trying to peer in one of the windows although they’ve all been shut because maybe Jeongin is a vampire or something with how pale he is, when suddenly the front door swings open and Chan calls out, “Yo Felix! We’re ready for you.”

 

Maybe Felix is smart, but Chan sure as hell is smarter. 

 

“Hi,” Felix says sheepishly, moving out from behind the bushes. “How did you know I was here?”

 

“Your mom called, said to keep an eye on you in case you did anything dumb like,” Chan pauses here to look Felix up and down, “Hiding in bushes or something like that.”

 

Felix looks down at himself as well, and blushes, brushing off his clothes as he shakes the dirt and leaves off of himself. “Oh.”

 

“Anyway!” Chan exclaims, standing up straighter. “Come on in, we have a cake.”

 

He walks in and looks around with a smile as heads pop up here and there, Seungmin complaining, “Aw man, it was supposed to be a surprise!”

 

Hyunjin just shrugs and shouts, “Surprise, bitch!” and takes a running leap over the couch he was hiding all five feet ten inches of himself behind and hurdles into Felix’s arms. With a grunt, Felix topples back and catches him, but he’s not nearly strong enough to hold up the other boy so they both end up falling into the coffee table with a  _ crash _ .

 

There’s a long moment of silence, and then…

 

“Oh shit.” Chan runs over to help Felix stand back up and groans in frustration upon seeing the cut on his eyebrow where a trickle of blood seeps out. “Literally every goddamn time, you just have to get hurt somehow.”

 

Confused, Felix swipes at his forehead, and then looks down at the smear of red on his hand. “Oh.”

 

Woojin just shrugs and goes to grab a bandaid from the bathroom, and upon concluding that the cut isn’t  _ that _ deep, they move on with the festivities, running to cut the cake. (“Please walk!” Woojin calls, as they’ve just used up their last bandaid on Felix’s face.)

 

As they eat, Felix looks around, feeling settled and content again, but he can’t help but feel like there’s just one small thing that’s missing. “Hey, Chris,” Felix whispers, nudging Chan on the couch while the other boys continue to play Mario Kart on the floor. 

 

“Yeah?” Chan answers, distracted by the hooting and hollering going on just in front of him. 

 

“Where’s emo hyung?” 

 

“Emo hyung? Oh, you mean Changbin,” Chan says with a laugh, turning to face Felix. “Why, do you  _ miss _ him?”

 

“What? No!” Felix protests. “I’ve only seen him, like, once.”

 

Chan just chuckles and fluffs Felix’s hair. “I’m sure you’ll see him around soon. I think he’s at the doctors for another checkup or something.”

 

“The doctors?” Felix’s curiosity is piqued, but Chan can’t answer his questions.

 

“Sorry bud, I think that’s more of a private thing. Now, didn’t you say that you had to come back to Korea for a medical thing, too? What’s all that about.”

 

“Oh,” Felix says, sitting up straight. “Well, about that…”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [[twitter](https://twitter.com/2jaepg)] and [[tumblr](http://busanjeongin.tumblr.com/)]  
> i have no stray kids mutuals yet please be my friend lol
> 
>  
> 
> [Buy Me a Coffee](https://ko-fi.com/R6R27QMR)


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